Residential houses and many business structures are formed by building a wooden framework which is then covered by any of a wide variety of materials to provide an attractive and durable inside and outside appearance. Vertical beams connecting the floor to a ceiling framework are called "studs" and are used as the framework for walls. Horizontal beams are called "joists" and are used as a framework for the ceiling of a lower room and the floor of an upper room. Joists generally branch off at right angles from a main supporting beam called a "header." In order to provide proper support in connecting a joist to a header in a T-connection, it has become standard practice to employ a joist hanger made of steel which can be nailed to the header and to the joist. This avoids the prior weakness of employing the "toenail" technique of connecting the beams without using a hanger.
There are several designs of joist hangers, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos.:
______________________________________ 537,504 874,514 546,147 3,601,428 625,427 3,752,512 666,918 4,005,942 753,053 4,411,548 770,050 4,480,941 828,488 ______________________________________
Many of these are preformed to provide a connection between beams of only a few sizes and are not sufficiently adaptable to be employed for many different combinations of beams. Many have special features which cause the hangers to be overly expensive to manufacture. Many do not have any provision for bolt or large screw connectors. Many are difficult or dangerous to use because of the constricted spaces in which nails must be driven in order to attach the hanger to the header beam. None of the prior art hangers provide an automatic alignment means for any selected combination of beams and joists.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved joist hanger. It is another object of this invention to provide an improved joist hanger which is inexpensive to manufacture, minimizes waste, is safe and easy to use, and has alignment and bolt-attachment features. Still other improvements will be apparent from the more detailed description which follows.